I’m a fairly intelligent guy. I’m not a huge intellect but I reckon I’d be “slightly above average” on the scale of smartness which I’m sure exists somewhere… I mean I’ve taken one of those Mensa tests, and did some sort of “smartypants” test, before I joined Sage/tetra back in the day, so based on the those I have PROOF that I’m smarter than you. Well not you (obviously), but definitely YOU (yeah, you).

I’m not boasting. Honest. In fact it’s become a bit of a puzzle for me, you see I’ve always been smart-ish, was in the top classes for Maths and English and if I’d applied myself a little more I’m sure I could’ve gone on to great things at University whereas I took the “real life” education route and spent far too much time in the union bar. Lack of application, also known as laziness, is one problem but that’s coupled with an inability to focus on things in which I’m not inherently interested. As a result I find myself picking up new projects/interests with abandon and then doing just that, abandoning them.

And therein lies my problem. It’s all well and good to be kinda clever but it’s much more helpful to be very good at one thing, rather than OK at many, right?

When it comes to general “life” stuff I’m quite glad that I don’t have a single area of expertise as it assures that I won’t be the bore at the party, waffling on about MY topic in great (and no doubt fascinating) detail. Instead I can converse on a variety of topics, to a reasonable level, as my mood takes. Except politics. Apathy usually kicks in early when that topic rears its head as it’s never a discussion but inevitably turns into one or two people dominating the conversation, talking over others and trying to state their opinions the most vociferously. It’s very boring.

Why? Because people don’t want to explain their political stance, they want to convert you, educate you forcibly to see that THEY ARE RIGHT. Either that or they think that the only way to explain their support of a particular branch of politics is to prove how much better it is than all the others, usually by concentrating on the flaws of the other parties. Tedious. Anyway, where was I… ?

Specialism is something I lack and whilst it has nothing to do with being smart —and everything to do with being unique— it is beginning to piss me off. In short; I’m “quite good” at many things but excel at none, I know “a fair bit” about a lot of topics but I’m not an expert at any.

I’m not going to go on as this could be come one of those boring, introverted whaaa whaaa whaaaaaa posts that we all despise, where I’ll end up over-analysing everything and coming to some far-reaching and wholly inaccurate assumption (another thing at which “I’m quite good”). I’m putting this current malaise down to lack of sleep, general meh-ness, and that’s that.

Anyone else feel like this? Or are you very good at one thing in particular? How many experts do we have in the audience?